By Denver Sells
Parasites are an interesting aspect
of nature. However, they are still
a naturally occurring organism, therefore why would we not have parasitic
building forms. This seems like
such a new concept to me as we were going over it in class. Why should this come as a shock or as
something new? But I think it is
something that has only just recently come to realization among the
architectural community. This
puzzled me. I could not understand
why this would be that way, but then I thought about why we seek shelter, and
it is to create this harmonious space that makes us feel comfortable and
safe. When you add on a parasitic
piece, to humans, this does not usually bring to mind something positive, like
something not healthy. Thus, when
you add that to a building, our first reaction would be something that is not
positive. However, as evident by
the sites we have seen in lecture, they can be something whimsical and
interesting.
Maybe for some, this represents
another aspect of desired home building in that we strive to have our own
building, if not that at least our own space that is ours, but a part of the
whole. In a parasitic structure,
we are making room for ourselves.
It is meant to latch on to the side of something else, whether it be
another building or the side of a bridge support, either way, it is something
that we do not own, that is dependent on someone or something else. As humans we do not want to depend on
others, it goes against our primal desire to adapt and overcome and gain
success at what we do. In this
way, we are almost settling for latching on to something else in order to make
our piece.
I’m not saying that these have to
be boring, on the contrary, a lot of the parasitic designs I have come across
in research are very interesting, inspiring and thought provoking. For instance, in the image below of the
white sided building with the parasitic “shack” added on, this is something
that is an art piece instead of a usable space, but despite that it still tugs
at our imagination whether someone could live there. It is almost a sense of wonder in the way that if someone
did live there, could they live there life like normal and not know they were
randomly moved and added several stories above the ground onto the side of a
building. In the other photo, the
building is attached to the side of a bridge support. In my opinion this is a brilliant addition and could be
something that could be seriously explored, especially in densely populated
areas such as New York City.
Overall, the parasitic architecture
lecture has been the most thought provoking discussion out of all of them. I can’t say that I understand it more
than the others, or that it makes more sense, but it is more interesting in the
aspect that it presented more questions than any of the others. I left lecture more puzzled than any
other, and it has taken me a lot longer to be able to think of how to respond
to such a different idea of architecture.
I love the idea and I want to try to incorporate it into more of my
design thoughts as I move forward.
